Sex offenders and sex crimes provoke a great deal of anxiety in our society, and over the past decade, lawmakers have passed a variety of social policies designed to protect the public from sexual victimization. The purpose of this study was to examine public perceptions about sex offenders and community protection policies. Data were obtained from a sample of 193 residents in Melbourne, Florid...

This quasi-experimental study analyzed the recidivism outcomes of 1,125 sexual offenders in two groups. The first group comprised 644 registered sex offenders who were convicted of a sex crime and at some point failed to register after release from prison. The comparison group contained 481 registered sex offenders released from prison during a similar time frame who did not fail to register af...

A cross-sectional study examining the oral language abilities and social skills of male juvenile offenders is described. Fifty juvenile offenders and 50 non-offending controls completed measures of language processing and production, and measures of social skill and IQ. Information about type of offending, substance use histories and learning/literacy problems was also gathered.Young offenders ...

The purpose of this pilot study is to examine the impact of trauma, age, and ethnicity on the world assumptions of criminal offenders. Fifty-eight incarcerated offenders completed a modified version of Stressful Life Events Screening Inventory (SLESI) and the World Assumptions Scale (WAS) during 1-hr face-to-face interviews. Ordinary least square regression analyses revealed that trauma signifi...

This study analyzes a series of crimes committed by sexual offenders and a series committed by non-sexual offenders. Subjects chosen for the study were seven sexual offenders (Test Group) and twelve offenders with non-sexual crimes (Control Group). Test data were selected from the Minnesota Predatory Offender Registry. Control group data were randomly selected from data provided with the crime ...

This study compares bullying behaviour among juvenile and young offenders and incorporates two different methods to measure bullying. Ninety-five male juvenile and 196 male young offenders completed two questionnaires, one that measured bullying directly and one that measured behaviours indicative of "being bullied" or of "bullying others". Juveniles perceived a higher extent of bullying than y...

Data collected in the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program on alcohol and other drug use among arrestees provide a valuable opportunity to examine the relationship between alcohol use and violence. The data are used to explore the combined use of alcohol and other drugs among offenders and the relationships between substance use and the offenders' demographic characteristics and offens...

Much scholarly and governmental research has been conducted both on recidivism rates of released prisoners and on offenders who have participated in alternative sanction programs, such as community service or home detention. However, limited research is available that compares recidivism rates of offenders released through traditional incarceration to offenders released through alternative sanc...

People with mental impairment are so heavily over-represented in prisons and jails that jails have been labeled “warehouses for the mentally ill.” In many parts of the United States, there are more mentally impaired offenders in prisons than in hospitals for the mentally unwell. Offenders laboring with impaired mental functioning are often regarded as being less morally culpable for their crime...

Since 1997, states have begun to make criminal history records publicly available over the Internet. This paper exploits this previously unexamined variation to identify the effect of expanded employer access to criminal history data on the labor market outcomes of ex-offenders and non-offenders. Employers express a strong aversion to hiring ex-offenders, but there is likely asymmetric informat...